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Entity Play/Pause Panel

The Entity Play/Pause Panel is a configuration menu that appears when a user clicks the "Start" button to initiate the synchronization of a specific entity. Before the synchronization process begins, this panel allows you to precisely define the synchronization mode, how data will be read from the source, and how it will be written to the target.

Key features

  • Dual Synchronization Modes: Choose between initiating a continuous, real-time Change Data Capture (CDC) or a one-time, bulk data copy (Snapshot).

  • Customizable Start Points: Gain control over when the CDC engine starts listening to changes, with options to reset previous checkpoints or begin tracking from the current moment.

  • Target Data Management: Define how incoming data interacts with existing records in the target database (merge, truncate, or selectively delete).

  • Advanced Routing: Seamlessly access sub-menus to fine-tune performance and set custom deletion rules before starting the entity.

Configuration Tabs

The configuration is divided into two main tabs depending on the type of synchronization you want to perform:

1. Sync changes (CDC)

By selecting this tab, you configure the continuous Change Data Capture (CDC) engine for the selected entity.

CDC Settings

These settings dictate the point in time from which Gluesync should start reading changes from the source.

  • Reset any existing checkpoint: If checked, Gluesync will ignore any previously saved state (checkpoint) for this entity and restart reading from the beginning of the available transaction log.

Server Maintenance? Do NOT check this box. If you paused replication simply to perform server maintenance or an agent restart, leave this unchecked. Gluesync will automatically resume from the exact point it left off.

  • Begin from now: If selected, the CDC will ignore past changes and start intercepting new modifications exactly from the moment the Start entity button is pressed.

Initial Snapshot

It is often necessary to align data before starting the real-time synchronization.

  • Perform an initial Snapshot ahead of the CDC: If checked, Gluesync will perform a full bulk load of the entity’s current data first based on the Snapshot Settings configured below. Once this is complete, it will automatically switch to CDC mode for subsequent changes.

This is the recommended approach when syncing a new table for the first time, ensuring the target database is perfectly aligned before streaming live changes.

2. Snapshot (copy-only)

Selecting this tab is used for performing a one-time initial bulk load.

When you start an entity using this tab, Gluesync will perform the data extraction and insertion based on the configured Snapshot Settings below and then stop. It will not activate continuous change listening (CDC) afterward.

Snapshot Settings

Whether you are performing a pure Snapshot (via the second tab) or an initial Snapshot ahead of the CDC (via the first tab), you must define your target insertion strategy and performance preferences.

  • Merge with existing data: Performs an upsert operation. New records will be inserted, and existing ones (matching the primary key) will be updated.

  • Truncate existing data and insert: Executes a TRUNCATE operation to completely empty the target table before inserting the source data.

This operation leads to the permanent loss of all pre-existing data in the target for that specific entity.

  • Selectively delete data, then begin snapshot: Allows you to apply a custom filter to perform a targeted DELETE operation before inserting new data.

  • Performance tunings: This button opens an advanced menu to optimize read and write operations, such as multi-threaded reading, source partitioning, and write concurrency limits.

Starting the Entity

Once you have configured the desired settings in your chosen tab, click the Start entity button located at the bottom right of the panel to begin the synchronization process. You can click Close at any time to cancel the operation and return to the main dashboard.

See also